Famous Long Inspiration Poems

Famous Long Inspiration Poems. Long Inspiration Poetry by Famous Poets. A collection of the all-time best Inspiration long poems

See also: Long Member Poems

 TO the assembled folk 
At great St. Kavin’s spoke 
Young Brother Amiel on Christmas Eve; 
I give you joy, my friends, 
That as the round year ends, 
We meet once more for gladness by God’s leave. 

On other festal days 
For penitence or praise 
Or prayer we meet, or fullness of thanksgiving; 
To-night we calendar 
The rising of that star 
Which lit the old world with new joy of living. 

Ah, we disparage still 
The Tidings of Good Will, 
Discrediting Love’s gospel now as then! 
And with the verbal creed 
That God is love indeed, 
Who dares make Love his god before all men? 

Shall we not, therefore, friends, 
Resolve to make amends 
To that glad inspiration of the heart; 
To grudge not, to cast out 
Selfishness, malice, doubt, 
Anger and fear; and for the better part, 

To love so much, so well, 
The spirit cannot tell 
The range and sweep of her own boundary! 
There is no period 
Between the soul and God; 
Love is the tide, God the eternal sea.… 

To-day we walk by love; 
To strive is not enough, 
Save against greed and ignorance and might. 
We apprehend peace comes 
Not with the roll of drums,...
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 A Pindaric Ode

Awake, Aeolian lyre, awake,
And give to rapture all thy trembling strings.
From Helicon's harmonious springs
A thousand rills their mazy progress take:
The laughing flowers that round them blow
Drink life and fragrance as they flow.
Now the rich stream of Music winds along,
Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,
Thro' verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign;
Now rolling down the steep amain,
Headlong, impetuous, see it pour;
The rocks and nodding groves re-bellow to the roar.

Oh! Sov'reign of the willing soul,
Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs,
Enchanting shell! the sullen Cares
And frantic Passions hear thy soft control.
On Thracia's hills the Lord of War
Has curbed the fury of his car,
And dropt his thirsty lance at thy command.
Perching on the sceptred hand
Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feathered king
With ruffled plumes and flagging wing:
Quenched in dark clouds of slumber lie
The terror of his beak, and lightnings of his eye.

Thee the voice, the dance, obey,
Tempered to thy warbled lay.
O'er Idalia's velvet-green
The rosy-crowned Loves are seen
On Cytherea's day,
With antic Sport, and blue-eyed Pleasures,
Frisking light in frolic measures;
Now pursuing, now retreating,
Now in circling troops they meet:
To brisk notes in cadence beating
Glance their many-twinkling feet.
Slow melting strains their Queen's approach declare:
Where'er she turns the Graces homage pay.
With arms sublime that float upon the air
In...
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 O, let me seize thy pen sublime
That paints, in melting dulcet rhyme, 
The glowing pow'r, the magic art, 
Th' extatic raptures of the Heart; 
Soft Beauty's timid smile serene,
The dimples of Love's sportive mien; 
The sweet descriptive tale to trace; 
To picture Nature's winning grace;
To steal the tear from Pity's eye; 
To catch the sympathetic sigh; 
O teach me, with swift light'nings force
To watch wild passion's varying course; 
To mark th' enthusiast's vivid fire,
Or calmly touch thy golden lyre,
While gentle Reason mildly sings
Responsive to the trembling strings. 

SWEET Nymph, enchanting Poetry! 
I dedicate my mind to Thee. 
Oh! from thy bright Parnassian bow'rs
Descend, to bless my sombre hours;
Bend to the earth thy eagle wing,
And on its glowing plumage bring
Blithe FANCY, from whose burning eye
The young ideas sparkling fly; 
O, come, and let us fondly stray,
Where rosy Health shall lead the way,
And soft FAVONIUS lightly spread
A perfum'd carpet as we tread;
Ah! let us from the world remove,
The calm forgetfulness to prove,
Which at the still of evening's close,
Lulls the tir'd peasant to repose; 
Repose, whose balmy joys o'er-pay
The sultry labours of the day. 

And when the blue-ey'd dawn appears,
Just peeping thro' her veil of tears; 
Or blushing opes her silver gate,...
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 In elder days, in Saturn's prime,
Ere baldness seized the head of Time,
While truant Jove, in infant pride,
Play'd barefoot on Olympus' side,
Each thing on earth had power to chatter,
And spoke the mother tongue of nature.
Each stock or stone could prate and gabble,
Worse than ten labourers of Babel.
Along the street, perhaps you'd see
A Post disputing with a Tree,
And mid their arguments of weight,
A Goose sit umpire of debate.
Each Dog you met, though speechless now,
Would make his compliments and bow,
And every Swine with congees come,
To know how did all friends at home.
Each Block sublime could make a speech,
In style and eloquence as rich,
And could pronounce it and could pen it,
As well as Chatham in the senate.


Nor prose alone.--In these young times,
Each field was fruitful too in rhymes;
Each feather'd minstrel felt the passion,
And every wind breathed inspiration.
Each Bullfrog croak'd in loud bombastic,
Each Monkey chatter'd Hudibrastic;
Each Cur, endued with yelping nature,
Could outbark Churchill's[2] self in satire;
Each Crow in prophecy delighted,
Each Owl, you saw, was second-sighted,
Each Goose a skilful politician,
Each Ass a gifted met'physician,
Could preach in wrath 'gainst laughing rogues,
Write Halfway-covenant Dialogues,[3]
And wisely judge of all disputes
In commonwealths of men or brutes.


'Twas then, in spring a youthful Sparrow
Felt the keen force of Cupid's arrow:
For Birds,...
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 You've heard of "Casey at The Bat,"
 And "Casey's Tabble Dote";
 But now it's time
 To write a rhyme
 Of "Casey's Billy-goat."

Pat Casey had a billy-goat he gave the name of Shamus,
Because it was (the neighbours said) a national disgrace.
And sure enough that animal was eminently famous
For masticating every rag of laundry round the place.
For shirts to skirts prodigiously it proved its powers of chewing;
The question of digestion seemed to matter not at all;
But you'll agree, I think with me, its limit of misdoing
Was reached the day it swallowed Missis Rooney's ould red shawl.

Now Missis Annie Rooney was a winsome widow women,
And many a bouncing boy had sought to make her change her name;
And living just across the way 'twas surely only human
A lonesome man like Casey should be wishfully the same.
So every Sunday, shaved and shined, he'd make the fine occasion
To call upon the lady, and she'd take his and coat;
And supping tea it seemed that she might yield to his persuasion,
But alas! he hadn't counted on that devastating goat.

For Shamus loved his master with a deep and dumb devotion,
And everywhere that Casey went that goat would want to go;
And though I cannot analyze a quadruped's emotion,
They said...
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 SOME books are lies frae end to end,
And some great lies were never penn’d:
Ev’n ministers they hae been kenn’d,
 In holy rapture,
A rousing whid at times to vend,
 And nail’t wi’ Scripture.


But this that I am gaun to tell,
Which lately on a night befell,
Is just as true’s the Deil’s in hell
 Or Dublin city:
That e’er he nearer comes oursel’
 ’S a muckle pity.


The clachan yill had made me canty,
I was na fou, but just had plenty;
I stacher’d whiles, but yet too tent aye
 To free the ditches;
An’ hillocks, stanes, an’ bushes, kenn’d eye
 Frae ghaists an’ witches.


The rising moon began to glowre
The distant Cumnock hills out-owre:
To count her horns, wi’ a my pow’r,
 I set mysel’;
But whether she had three or four,
 I cou’d na tell.


I was come round about the hill,
An’ todlin down on Willie’s mill,
Setting my staff wi’ a’ my skill,
 To keep me sicker;
Tho’ leeward whiles, against my will,
 I took a bicker.


I there wi’ Something did forgather,
That pat me in an eerie swither;
An’ awfu’ scythe, out-owre ae shouther,
 Clear-dangling, hang;
A three-tae’d leister on the ither
 Lay, large an’ lang.


Its stature seem’d lang Scotch ells twa,
The queerest shape that e’er I saw,
For fient a wame it...
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 Achievin' sech distinction with his moddel tabble dote
Ez to make his Red Hoss Mountain restauraw a place uv note,
Our old friend Casey innovated somewhat round the place,
In hopes he would ameliorate the sufferin's uv the race;
'Nd uv the many features Casey managed to import
The most important wuz a Steenway gran' pianny-fort,
An' bein' there wuz nobody could play upon the same,
He telegraffed to Denver, 'nd a real perfesser came,--
The last an' crownin' glory uv the Casey restauraw
Wuz that tenderfoot musicianer, Perfesser Vere de Blaw!

His hair wuz long an' dishybill, an' he had a yaller skin,
An' the absence uv a collar made his neck look powerful thin:
A sorry man he wuz to see, az mebby you'd surmise,
But the fire uv inspiration wuz a-blazin' in his eyes!
His name wuz Blanc, wich same is Blaw (for that's what Casey said,
An' Casey passed the French ez well ez any Frenchie bred);
But no one ever reckoned that it really wuz his name,
An' no one ever asked him how or why or whence he came,--
Your ancient history is a thing the Coloradan hates,
An' no one asks another what his name wuz in the States!

At evenin', when the work wuz done, an' the miners rounded up
At Casey's,...
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 There is a power whose inspiration fills 
Nature's fair fabric, sun- and star-inwrought, 
Like airy dew ere any drop distils, 
Like perfume in the laden flower, like aught 
Unseen which interfused throughout the whole 
Becomes its quickening pulse and principle and soul. 
Now when, the drift of old desire renewing, 
Warm tides flow northward over valley and field, 
When half-forgotten sound and scent are wooing 
From their deep-chambered recesses long sealed 
Such memories as breathe once more 
Of childhood and the happy hues it wore, 
Now, with a fervor that has never been 
In years gone by, it stirs me to respond, -- 
Not as a force whose fountains are within 
The faculties of the percipient mind, 
Subject with them to darkness and decay, 
But something absolute, something beyond, 
Oft met like tender orbs that seem to peer 
From pale horizons, luminous behind 
Some fringe of tinted cloud at close of day; 
And in this flood of the reviving year, 
When to the loiterer by sylvan streams, 
Deep in those cares that make Youth loveliest, 
Nature in every common aspect seems 
To comment on the burden in his breast -- 
The joys he covets and the dreams he dreams...
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 Her teacher's certainty it must be Mabel
Made Maple first take notice of her name.
She asked her father and he told her, "Maple—
Maple is right."
"But teacher told the school
There's no such name."
"Teachers don't know as much
As fathers about children, you tell teacher.
You tell her that it's M-A-P-L-E.
You ask her if she knows a maple tree.
Well, you were named after a maple tree.
Your mother named you. You and she just saw
Each other in passing in the room upstairs,
One coming this way into life, and one
Going the other out of life—you know?
So you can't have much recollection of her.
She had been having a long look at you.
She put her finger in your cheek so hard
It must have made your dimple there, and said,
'Maple.' I said it too: 'Yes, for her name.'
She nodded. So we're sure there's no mistake.
I don't know what she wanted it to mean,
But it seems like some word she left to bid you
Be a good girl—be like a maple tree.
How like a maple tree's for us to guess.
Or for a little girl to guess sometime.
Not now—at least I shouldn't try too hard now.
By and by I will tell you all I know
About the different trees, and something, too,
About your...
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 ("Enfants! Oh! revenez!") 
 
 {XXII, April, 1837} 


 Children, come back—come back, I say— 
 You whom my folly chased away 
 A moment since, from this my room, 
 With bristling wrath and words of doom! 
 What had you done, you bandits small, 
 With lips as red as roses all? 
 What crime?—what wild and hapless deed? 
 What porcelain vase by you was split 
 To thousand pieces? Did you need 
 For pastime, as you handled it, 
 Some Gothic missal to enrich 
 With your designs fantastical? 
 Or did your tearing fingers fall 
 On some old picture? Which, oh, which 
 Your dreadful fault? Not one of these; 
 Only when left yourselves to please 
 This morning but a moment here 
 'Mid papers tinted by my mind 
 You took some embryo verses near— 
 Half formed, but fully well designed 
 To open out. Your hearts desire 
 Was but to throw them on the fire, 
 Then watch the tinder, for the sight 
 Of shining sparks that twinkle bright 
 As little boats that sail at night, 
 Or like the window lights that spring...
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 Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 't is early morn:
Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle-horn. 

'T is the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call,
Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall; 

Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts,
And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts. 

Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,
Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West. 

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade,
Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid. 

Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime
With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time; 

When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed;
When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed: 

When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see;
Saw the Vision of the world and all the wonder that would be.-- 

In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast;
In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest; 

In the Spring a livelier iris...
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 You have obey'd, you WINDS, that must fulfill 
The Great Disposer's righteous Will; 
Throughout the Land, unlimited you flew, 
Nor sought, as heretofore, with Friendly Aid 
Only, new Motion to bestow 
Upon the sluggish Vapours, bred below, 
Condensing into Mists, and melancholy Shade. 
No more such gentle Methods you pursue, 
But marching now in terrible Array, 
Undistinguish'd was your Prey: 
In vain the Shrubs, with lowly Bent, 
Sought their Destruction to prevent; 
The Beech in vain, with out-stretch'd Arms, 
Deprecates th' approaching Harms; 
In vain the Oak (so often storm'd) 
Rely'd upon that native Force, 
By which already was perform'd 
So much of his appointed Course, 
As made him, fearless of Decay, 
Wait but the accomplish'd Time 
Of his long-wish'd and useful Prime, 
To be remov'd, with Honor, to the Sea. 


The strait and ornamental Pine 
Did in the like Ambition joyn, 
And thought his Fame shou'd ever last, 
When in some Royal Ship he stood the planted Mast; 
And shou'd again his Length of Timber rear, 
And new engrafted Branches wear 
Of fibrous Cordage and impending Shrouds, 
Still trimm'd with human Care, and water'd by the Clouds. 
But oh, you Trees! who solitary stood; 
Or you, whose Numbers...
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 I met a lady from the South who said
(You won't believe she said it, but she said it):
"None of my family ever worked, or had
A thing to sell." I don't suppose the work
Much matters. You may work for all of me.
I've seen the time I've had to work myself.
The having anything to sell is what
Is the disgrace in man or state or nation.

I met a traveler from Arkansas
Who boasted of his state as beautiful
For diamonds and apples. "Diamonds
And apples in commercial quantities?"
I asked him, on my guard. "Oh, yes," he answered,
Off his. The time was evening in the Pullman.
I see the porter's made your bed," I told him.

I met a Californian who would
Talk California—a state so blessed,
He said, in climate, none bad ever died there
A natural death, and Vigilance Committees
Had had to organize to stock the graveyards
And vindicate the state's humanity.
"Just the way Stefansson runs on," I murmured,
"About the British Arctic. That's what comes
Of being in the market with a climate."

I met a poet from another state,
A zealot full of fluid inspiration,
Who in the name of fluid inspiration,
But in the best style of bad salesmanship,
Angrily tried to male me write a protest
(In verse I think) against the Volstead Act.
He...
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 How gracefully, O man, with thy palm-bough,
Upon the waning century standest thou,
In proud and noble manhood's prime,
With unlocked senses, with a spirit freed,
Of firmness mild,--though silent, rich in deed,
The ripest son of Time,
Through meekness great, through precepts strong,
Through treasures rich, that time had long
Hid in thy bosom, and through reason free,--
Master of Nature, who thy fetters loves,
And who thy strength in thousand conflicts proves,
And from the desert soared in pride with thee!

Flushed with the glow of victory,
Never forget to prize the hand
That found the weeping orphan child
Deserted on life's barren strand,
And left a prey to hazard wild,--
That, ere thy spirit-honor saw the day,
Thy youthful heart watched over silently,
And from thy tender bosom turned away
Each thought that might have stained its purity;
That kind one ne'er forget who, as in sport,
Thy youth to noble aspirations trained,
And who to thee in easy riddles taught
The secret how each virtue might be gained;
Who, to receive him back more perfect still,
E'en into strangers' arms her favorite gave--
Oh, may'st thou never with degenerate will,
Humble thyself to be her abject slave!
In industry, the bee the palm may bear;
In skill, the worm a lesson may impart;
With spirits blest thy knowledge thou dost share,
But thou, O man, alone hast...
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 A quay with vessels moored 

Thomas 
To India! Yea, here I may take ship; 
From here the courses go over the seas, 
Along which the intent prows wonderfully 
Nose like lean hounds, and tack their journeys out, 
Making for harbours as some sleuth was laid 
For them to follow on their shifting road. 
Again I front my appointed ministry. -- 
But why the Indian lot to me? Why mine 
Such fearful gospelling? For the Lord knew 
What a frail soul He gave me, and a heart 
Lame and unlikely for the large events. -- 
And this is worse than Baghdad! though that was 
A fearful brink of travel. But if the lots, 
That gave to me the Indian duty, were 
Shuffled by the unseen skill of Heaven, surely 
That fear of mine in Baghdad was the same 
Marvellous Hand working again, to guard 
The landward gate of India from me. There 
I stood, waiting in the weak early dawn 
To start my journey; the great caravan's 
Strange cattle with their snoring breaths made steam 
Upon the air, and (as I thought) sadly 
The beasts at market-booths and awnings gay 
Of shops, the city's comfortable trade, 
Lookt, and then into...
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